Fairly quiet day in Corsica. We tendered in to Calvi and walked up to the top of the Citadel. It is an interesting mix of old and new. People still live up top, but the citadel itself has fallen into disrepair. This made Rudy mad. He wanted them to keep up the citadel walls and not build houses. We explained to him that people have always lived inside those walls for hundreds of years and they want to keep their houses but they don't need the citadel anymore. -James
The citadel walls are so massive that they are still well preserved. Some of the buildings inside the walls have fallen down, or have stucco that is peeling off. The cathedral inside the citadel is a tiny little church. It's hard to make any comparison between that an most other cathedrals anywhere. I read that Corsica has been fairly isolated for most of history; only recently has it become a cruise port and it wasn't long before that it was any sort of tourist destination at all. Presumably, what used to be a humble little fishing island isolated in the Mediterranean didn't have sufficient funds to build any sort of grand cathedral.
Inside the Calvi Cathedral. Rather bare, comparatively.
We walked down through the town at sea level and visited the Rose Church. The outside was a pleasant pink color. Again - the inside was in line with the fishing village idea - stone painted to look like marble (only effective from a distance) and a small dome. James asked the boys if they thought the dome was big...just setting them up for the Duomo tomorrow!
Today we went to Calvi, Corsica. We walked up to an old fortress with 6 ft wide and 50-100 ft tall walls. We went to a couple churches that were kinda cool but not as good as the ones in Barcelona. We went into a boulangerie and got some paninis. Then we went to a rock beach with okay snorkeling. Then we did some cliff diving from a 12 foot ledge We got back on the tender and while we were cruising, we lost an engine! So they cleared both dock parts and the captain missed the first one missed the 2nd dock and ran right into the ship. Then they had 3 guys pulling the rope and the rope snapped! Finally we got on the ship at dinner watched a couple circus acts and went to bed. -Brady
From the top of the citadel we had spied a rock beach so we walked around to that spot. Kelly and Brady went snorkeling. There were some older kids jumping off a cliff so when they left I asked Brady if he wanted to go. I didn't think Rudy would go after the jelly fish incident the day before but once I said I would go and started swimming over Rudy was in after me faster than Brady. It was a short swim across a small cut in the rocks. But climbing out was tough as the water was throwing us against the rocks and then pulling us away. We walked up the slope to the top of the jump which was probably 12 feet. I went first. It was plenty deep. The boys followed with no hesitation. We each went 3 or 4 more times and then eventually headed back. -James
Lunch was on the rock beach, with some fresh French bread and ham sandwiches we'd picked up in town. Again - yum! Fresh air and French bread is hard to beat!
These two goofs could get pretty wound up in the cabin in the evenings. We found them posing in the HAL robes after showers tonight:
Watching the citadel as we sailed away:
Today we were in Calvi. First we got breakfast at the Lido deck. Then we took a tender and climbed the Citadel. It would be really hard to attack because the walls are at least 6 feet thick. Also because the walls were at least 100 feet tall. Then we went to a rock beach and jumped off a cliff that was about 12 feet tall. We ate lunch which was ham paninis then we went to the tender port and got on a tender and went back to the ship but one engine stopped so it was so fun trying to get docked to get off the tender onto the boat. After that we went to dinner and went to the theater and went to bed. -Rudy
One of the few selfies we took the whole trip...we still tend to rely on other friendly travelers rather than a selfie stick!
Dinner laughs:
Yup, another amazing sunset!
Duo Challenge was the entertainment for the evening. Of the pair, the wife was far and away the more talented of the two. Honestly, we felt a little bad for the husband because none of his acts seemed to go his way that night. We were all most impressed with her balancing act: on a cruise ship, on a table, on a half dozen cylinders...in high heels!
That night when we went to play shuffleboard, we saw an officer sternly instructing some crew members about how to stack and secure deck chairs. We figured that meant some kind of weather coming, which was not good for Florence the next day. -James
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